Old Spice ad campaign - Made to Stick

What makes the recent Old Spice advertisement campaign so memorable?

During the recent world cup soccer finals, I recalled seeing an advertisement for Old Spice that "broke my guessing machine". A well built and good looking black man (Isaiah Mustafa) was the spokesperson, not a white man surfing the tube of giant waves. Among all the advertisements that day, this one stuck in my mind. Days later, I read about this ad campaign becoming one of the most followed and watched videos on YouTube. Borrowing ideas from Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, here is why I think the message stuck.

Simple - the old spice man can smell good despite baking a gourmet cake in a kitchen he built himself. Why wouldn't a lady want her man to Smell like a Man, Man by using the old spice bodywash?

Unexpected - my guessing machine was broken seeing the unexpected spokesperson, jolting me into attention.

Concrete - direct imagery to indicate that old spice's fragrance lasts - an adventure loving (walking on a floating log), hard working (built a kitchen with his own hands), fun loving (biker) person who still smells good.

Credible - looking at this strong and good looking guy, why wouldn't you believe he is all of the above?

Emotional - the messages are very personalized. Following the airing of the commercial, the ad agency seeded social networks with an invitation for people to ask questions of Isaiah's character. As the questions started flowing in, they made 87 short personalized video responses and posted them back to YouTube, thus appealing to people's egos. What better way to make the brand memorable?

Stories - each story in the video responses are connection plots, making people care.